This philosophy worked great if you did not care about creating better citizens in people who had made a mistake but could be rehabilitated; if you did not want to think about the effect of mingling juveniles with hardened adult criminals; if you did not care about the spiraling cost to support the expansion of incarceration – just a few of many things you could avoid thinking about.

My college psychology professor told us church buildings were like prisons. “Their thick, solid doors are locked most of the time,” he said, “and their windows are either high up the sanctuary walls or made of opaque glass – because those on the inside don’t want anyone on the outside to know they are there.”

I hadn’t thought about this statement in years, until I began researching local history and learned about “wardens” at the original St. Paul’s Church in Augusta. That’s when I remembered my college professor and his strange linking of worship and incarceration.

ATLANTA — Last week’s firing of Holly LaBerge is the latest example of the disruption at the state ethics commission she headed. The question now is whether the selection of her replacement will be used as an opportunity to put the tiny agency on a path to relevance or be squandered.

For more than a decade, there has been a battle between Georgia’s political parties over how that fundamental right should be regulated.

Republicans have made the path to the ballot box more challenging by passing laws that require voters to show photo ID cards, among other things. They maintain these restrictions are necessary to prevent election fraud.

Democrats contend that the roadblocks are intended to discourage blacks, latinos and other minorities – who tend to vote Democratic – from exercising their right to cast a ballot.

Whoever is elected to fill the Tax Commissioner’s seat in November can expect to have at least a little less autonomy in that office than Kay Allen was able to exercise over her more that 20 years at the helm.

Commissioners have already moved to set in place new agreements with Grovetown and Harlem to provide tax collection services at the same rate Allen was charging -- 2 percent. The difference is that money will now go directly to the county’s general fund, whereas Allen had been pocketing those fees from the cities, averaging more than $30,000 each year in extra salary.